MetaFilter posts tagged with sudoku

Su d'oh ku!

escabeche — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 18:36:13 -0800

Open Letter to the Sudoku community and the organizers of the Sudoku National Championship about the potential cheating of Eugene Varshavsky during this Saturday's tournament. An unknown "man in a hoodie" shows up late and unregistered to the 2009 Sudoku National Championship in Philadelphia, and wins third place despite skipping the first two rounds. Second-place finisher and 2007 World Champion Tom Snyder accuses him of having a radio transmitter concealed underneath the hood, feeding him computer-generated solutions. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that Varshavsky, wearing a stocking cap, defeated a grandmaster in the 2006 World Open chess tournament. Has competitive puzzling lost its innocence?

Let's practice math while playing!

dov3 — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 13:47:32 -0800

We all love Sudoku, and we like to play it. But now there is KenKen, a new version that includes simple mathematical equations. [previously in MeFi]

Surviving Sudoku

staggernation — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 06:53:34 -0800

Surviving Sudoku. Matt Gaffney, a crossword puzzle designer, examines the crossword community's ambivalent relationship with the phenomenally successful number puzzle. Meanwhile, it's high time to resurrect Done in Pen: The Poems of New York Times Puzzle Editor Will Shortz.

Minimum sudoku

Prospero — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 11:14:56 -0800

Minimum Sudoku. It is believed (though not proven) that the minimum number of entries in a Sudoku grid that will lead to a unique solution is 17. Gordon Royle of the University of Western Australia has collected 36,628 "minimum Sudoku" grids. Additional reading: an article in American Scientist on determining the difficulty of a Sudoku problem; Wikipedia article on the mathematics of Sudoku; the Sudoku Programmers' Forum on Sudoku mathematics.

Sudoku Combat

jonah — Sat, 08 Jul 2006 09:36:29 -0800

Sudoku Combat. Sudoku, head to head style. The stress mounts as your challenger's board blinks and fills. Bring it on.

数独 Friday

sellout — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 09:57:58 -0800

It's Friday, waste some time: Iron Sudoku, a daily sudoku challenge from the makers of Babble. (Free) registration required.

Would. You. Like. To. Play. A. Game?

Rothko — Thu, 10 Nov 2005 12:59:49 -0800

For those who tire of the usual paper and pencil-based puzzle, try Websudoku.

The puzzle that ate the world?!

insomnia_lj — Tue, 10 May 2005 19:11:14 -0800

The puzzle that ate the world?! It's called Su Doku. It came from Japan. It's deceptively simple, but a brief tutorial reveals hidden depths. It's spreading like gangbusters through the puzzle-obsessed British public, where it is making major news and being rapidly added to the country's newspapers. Fortunately, archived puzzles and free software are out there to provide puzzle addicts their latest fix. C'mon... give it a try. It's only *one* little puzzle. (Heh, heh.)

Crosswords with numbers

salmacis — Fri, 10 Dec 2004 05:18:34 -0800

Su Doku. Fill in the grid so that every row, every column, and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9. That's all there is to it. It doesn't sound like much, but it's as addictive as hell. The Times is one publication with a daily puzzle (may be unavailable to overseas readers.) There a tuturial and sample puzzle here (flash).